Despawning Fighters

I think I figured out why fighters sometimes despawn and how to stop it, although I can't easily confirm this, because it's sort of hard to reproduce.

What I see: Enemies engage me. I leg it. One of the pod members falls behind and eventually disengages. The rest follows. When I turn to fight them, now that I have a chance and fight them a little, suddenly they despawn. No death, nothing.

What probably happens: The pod leader has disengaged, the server asks the pod leader "Is there any player within 10/13/20k of you? No? Then despawn please". Pod leader says no, despawns, and takes their pod with it.

What should happen: The pod leader despawning should either check if any of its pod has a reason to stay active and if any are alive, either they or even the entire pod should stay active. Alternatively, a pod leader despawning could, maybe, hand over their role to another squad member, just like when they die, that infrastructure has to exist somewhere, I think.

Not at all a pressing issue, happens rarely. And when it does, it's usually not a pitched battle where it's really sad that you lose the ability to play it, because you were already fleeing anyway.

Start by tracing the pod leader's despawn decision and the existing leadership handoff used when a leader dies. Reproduce the fleeing-and-returning scenario if possible, then verify that a live pod with an active member remains present or transfers leadership instead of disappearing.